


Some Strange Courtship Ritual (You and Me And Nobody Else)

by luninosity



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) RPF
Genre: First Kiss, Flirting, Love Confessions, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-11
Updated: 2012-10-11
Packaged: 2017-11-16 02:32:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/534505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/pseuds/luninosity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James and Michael have a long day of interviews. Michael has one more. In other words, the one in which Michael pines, James sends text messages and gets a backrub, and eventually first kisses happen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Some Strange Courtship Ritual (You and Me And Nobody Else)

**Author's Note:**

> Title courtesy of Eve 6's "Jet Pack"; story originally inspired by a wonderful picture over at the mcfassy LJ comm in which it totally looks like someone's hiding in the curtains while Michael does an interview in a hotel room. Obviously that person is James...

It’d been a long day of interviews, strangers dropping by his hotel room, forced politeness at yet another all-too-similar set of questions—really, Michael wondered, how many times could he answer the same query about his preferred superpower?—and he was thinking longingly about martinis, or maybe just falling into bed as soon as he got the chance, and sleeping for a week if possible.  
   
One more interview, he thought. One more for the night. Then he could be done.  
   
He wondered whether James was finished already, down the hall. Maybe he had time to go ask. Maybe he could even get James to come over for a martini, although if James’s mental state was anything like his own, they’d probably both just fall asleep after one drink.  
   
He wouldn’t mind falling asleep with James, his treacherous brain pointed out. They hadn’t seen each other all day, both being trapped in endless rounds of interviews, and he was just a little too tired to resist a single indulgent thought about James in his arms. In his bed. No, he probably shouldn’t think about that one. Not unless he wanted the last interviewer to appear at a very awkward moment.  
   
He was allowed to think these things, though, alone in the privacy of his hotel room. No one, especially not James, would ever know just how badly Michael sometimes wanted to kiss him, how close Michael came to reaching for his hand every time James touched him or leaned into him during interviews, or just how pathetically happy he was to be spending every day at James’s side. _Almost_ every day, he thought, and sighed.  
   
James smiled at everyone, always, and therefore Michael’s heart really shouldn’t skip a beat when James smiled up at _him_.  
   
Except that he hadn’t seen James all day, even though James’s room was just down the hall, and at this point he was tired and frustrated and lonely even though he hadn’t been alone since breakfast. He had a feeling that the last few interviews hadn’t gone all that well, because he’d been trying hard but he’d been missing a Scottish accent and lakewater-blue eyes and laughter, and so Michael had spent much of the day feeling vaguely like he’d lost some vital element of necessary support, the foundation of all his inner structures removed and hidden somewhere else, leaving the rest of him standing on shaky ground.  
   
Apparently he could be very poetic when exhausted, though he really wasn’t sure where the building-related metaphors were coming from.  
   
There was a knock on his door, bouncing lazily off the wood and into his head. Okay. Last interview. He could manage that. He could, hopefully, even manage it without telling the interviewer that he needed James for internal home construction.  
   
He opened the door.  
   
“Hi,” James said, and then wandered past him without waiting for an invitation, glancing towards the currently-empty sitting area, and then making his way to Michael’s neatly made bed and flopping onto it, face-down in pillows. “Mmm. I like your bed.”  
   
Michael trailed after him, astonished, amused, happy. The world had sorted itself into its proper configuration again, he decided, and sat down on the edge of the bed, next to James, who didn’t move. “Are you done already?”  
   
“Just finished. You?”  
   
“One more…” There was likely a problem waiting there, but he couldn’t quite focus on it, because James was shoeless and his sock-clad feet were peeking out from under slightly too-long jeans. They were mesmerizing.  
   
“No shoes?”  
   
“Decided I’d rather be comfortable,” James said into the pillow, and wiggled his toes, as if in demonstration. Michael did _not_ lean over and kiss him, watching. “Besides, it’s not like they film my feet….” He lifted his head to peer at Michael, thoughtfully. “Unless the interviewer has a foot fetish. Do you know if that ever happens?”  
   
If he was still staring at James’s sock feet, did that count? Those were probably dangerous thoughts, and he tucked them away, firmly, but little questions about whether he’d really once seen freckles on James’s left ankle kept sneaking back out.  
   
“Where _are_ your shoes?” Now he sounded like his mother. Fantastic. Not the image he wanted to associate with James stretched out across his bed.  
   
“Under a chair, I think,” James told the pillow, contentedly. “You know, your bed is friendlier than mine.”  
   
Michael, who had really never contemplated the relative affection of his hotel furniture, found himself distracted from the sock feet by this. “Don’t we have matching rooms?”  
   
“Yes. But yours is still friendlier.” James sighed, and tried to burrow deeper into the bed. Michael put a hand on his back, and started kneading tired muscles, gently. He knew James ended up tense after interviews; he’d been there for enough of them. All the energy that James put into every encounter, all the sincerity and passion he tried to give with each answer, did take a toll, even though the interviewers and the audience never saw it. James would have been horrified if they had; he did his best, always, to make everyone else happy.  
   
“That feels fantastic, thank you…”  
   
“Not a problem. Is it helping?”  
   
“Very much yes.” One blue eye sparkled at him around the corner of the pillow. The other one, and the rest of James’s face, stayed buried in the depths of the bed, and Michael wondered, just for a second, if this was how James would look in the morning, sleepy and tangled up in pillows and sheets. Perfect, he thought. James in the morning would look perfect.  
   
“…Michael?”  
   
“Too hard?”  
   
“No, you’re amazing. And you were smiling. Why were you smiling?”  
   
Because I’m in love with you, Michael thought, and didn’t say it aloud. “Because you have little fuzzy things in your hair.” Which he did. Probably from the pillows.  
   
“Oh, well, that’s probably on camera, then…” James sounded entirely unconcerned by this discovery. “Probably tomorrow’s headline, somewhere.”  
   
“As if your hair is that important.” Under his fingertips, some of the tension was leaving James’s muscles. Michael considered this a success, so far, and didn’t stop.  
   
“I’ll have you know that my hair is very important. Much more important than you.”  
   
Michael paused long enough to poke him in the ribs.  
   
“Ow! All right, sorry. You and my hair are equally important, happy?” But James was grinning; Michael could see the corner of it, disappearing under the pillow.  
   
He was still working on a good answer to that when the _other_ knock echoed solidly off the door, breaking abruptly into the quiet of their space. James sat up, startled. “You _do_ have one more! I forgot, I’m sorry, I can go…”  
   
Michael glared at the door and ran through various obscenities in his head. German, Polish, Gaelic, and good old-fashioned Anglo-Saxon. They weren’t all on his own behalf, either; he hadn’t managed to finish taking care of James, who might still need him.  
   
James was eying the door, clearly wondering whether he should try to leave, considering the fact that there might be cameras prepared to catch him departing Michael’s room with disheveled hair and an absence of shoes. The alternative, of course, involved him staying _in_ the room, and that probably wouldn’t be much better.  
   
The knock came again, more impatiently, and they looked at each other.  
   
“I could…hide?”  
   
Michael glanced around the room, skeptically. “Despite the fact that you’re a tiny person—”  
   
“I’m not!”  
   
“—I really don’t think you can fit into my suitcase.”  
   
“I was thinking the curtains,” James said, and dove behind them as Michael got up to answer the door.  
   
Just one interviewer, thank god. And a cameraman, who was actually a camerawoman, who gave him such an appreciative look that Michael took a step back, inadvertently, and hoped that all his thoughts about James in his bed weren’t actually visible on his face.  
   
The interviewer smiled, offered a hand. Said his name, which Michael promptly forgot. Too many other distractions in his head. Damn.  
   
They sat down. The questions started.  
   
The first few were easy enough; they always were. Was he an X-Men fan before the movie. Did he enjoy working with Matthew Vaughn. Favorite scene. The interviewer was perfectly polite and sweet and all Michael could think about was James hiding behind the curtain, at his back, not two feet away. He was absolutely positive that James had found some way to watch him surreptitiously. He couldn’t turn and look, of course, but he could just tell.  
   
He didn’t mind James watching him, he had to admit, but the sensation really wasn’t helping him come up with thoughtful and interesting replies.  
   
His cellphone, sitting on the table in between them, buzzed loudly. Michael almost jumped out of his chair at the noise, and grabbed it before the too-curious camerawoman could zoom in on the screen.  
   
He had a text message, it informed him cheerfully. From James. Of course.  
   
 _Same questions always. Bored back here. Entertain me._  
   
Oh, no. “Um, sorry…”  
   
“Oh, go ahead and answer it! Can you tell us who it is?”  
   
 _Sorry I’m not interesting enough for you_ , Michael told him, trying to talk out loud at the same time. Neither worked well; he ended up making three typos, and not finishing his sentence. “It’s, ah…”  
   
“Someone special?”  
   
Yes, Michael almost said, automatically, because of course yes, and then bit his tongue. “Well, I suppose, but probably not in that sense. It’s, er, James. Saying good luck with the interview.” Somewhere his mother was yelling at him for lying on camera, he was certain.  
   
 _You’re always interesting. Also cute when you lie._  
   
What? Michael stared at the phone, and then realized he’d missed something. “Sorry?”  
   
“Are you two good friends off the set, then, as well?”  
   
“Um…yes, I think you could say that.” He was going to some sort of special hell, reserved for people who gave tremendously dishonest answers in front of cameras, to millions of viewers. But he couldn’t actually tell the truth, which would involve the words _love_ and _want_ and _absolute_ _rightness_ and possibly now _sock feet_ as well.  
   
“Any secrets you can tell us about James?”  
   
James was probably the least secretive person Michael had ever met. And that was one of the reasons Michael loved him, for all that openness and honesty and unashamed happiness. “I’m really not sure James has any secrets. And if he does, I shouldn’t tell you what they are.” There. James could suffer a bit.  
   
“What’s he like to work with?”  
   
“He’s amazing.” No prevarication needed there. “He’s one of the most generous people I’ve ever met. And incredibly dedicated. He’s brilliant, really.”  
   
The phone buzzed again. _So, not special, but amazing and brilliant? Confused_.  
   
“So you two get along well?”  
   
“Well, sometimes he absolutely refuses to stop talking.”  
   
 _Hey!  :-(_  
   
The interviewer laughed. “So, would that be his superpower? What about yours?”  
   
The ability to make cameras disappear would be nice, Michael thought, but went with, “Well, James says I make a very good martini…” That was probably safe enough, except for how, apparently, his answers all now revolved around references to James.  
   
 _Need a better answer._  
   
 _Shut up, James._  
   
 _Heard you’re beautiful naked. True?_  
   
Michael almost dropped the phone. Who had James been talking to? Why had James been talking about him? About him being naked? His brain rephrased that, considerately, to, James had been talking to people about him, Michael, being naked, and suddenly the room felt a lot warmer. He crossed his legs, and hoped that the movement didn’t look too panicked.  
   
“So, might there be sequels on the horizon?”  
   
“I hope so.” He did. For many reasons. “I know James and I would both be thrilled to come back—” And he’d started talking about James again. After exactly one sentence. James was probably laughing, behind the curtains. “—but that’s really up to the studio, and of course the fans who support us and go to see the film.”  
   
 _Feeling inadequate. Could send you a picture. Comparison purposes._  
   
James wouldn’t really, would he? Michael stared at the screen, torn between hoping desperately that James would, and wondering how the hell he’d make through the last few seconds of the interview if James did.  
   
But the phone stayed, stubbornly, silent.  
   
“Well, we’ll all certainly go see it over here! And we hope to see more of you in the future.”  
   
“We appreciate the support,” Michael managed, on polite autopilot. His phone still refused to announce any new messages, displaying its blank screen proudly. Why was there still a blank screen? If he looked away from it, momentarily, and then back, might something magically appear?  
   
The interviewer was busy saying good night to the camera. In the last few seconds, Michael recaptured enough of his brain to smile, hopefully in a friendly and not at all lust-crazed manner, and wave goodbye, before the recording turned off.  
   
The interviewer leaned over the table towards him. “If you don’t mind me saying so, you should get some sleep. You seem kind of distracted.”  
   
“Definitely. Yes. Thank you.” He was just hoping he could stand up and walk them to the door without the main reason for that distraction becoming noticeable. He could probably just about manage it, as long as James didn’t do anything else, and why hadn’t James done anything else?  
   
He shut the door on the interviewer and the camera—the camerawoman winked at him, and he hoped to god she’d not noticed James behind the curtains—and leaned against it, just in case. The dense wood offered support while he tried to gather some semblance of coherent thought.  
   
James emerged from hiding, laughing.  
   
“You complete _bastard_.”  
   
“Oh, don’t tell me you didn’t have fun!”  
   
“You—”  
   
“Most fun I’ve had all day. I missed you.”  
   
And Michael looked at him, grinning smugly, rumpled from the curtains and still with ridiculously adorable sock feet, the _I missed you_ hanging in the air in that Scottish accent, and reached out and yanked James closer to him. James, not at all dismayed by the sudden lack of personal space, only raised both eyebrows at him. “Feeling aggressive, are you?”  
   
“Yes,” Michael informed him, and leaned down and kissed him, because he couldn’t do anything else, not in that moment, not with James inches away, echoes of laughter hovering around his mouth.  
   
Some tiny voice in the back of his head started shouting, distantly, that this might be a really terrible idea, that he might’ve just done irreparable harm to their friendship, and what if James didn’t feel the same way? But that voice trailed off into silence, as the rest of his brain caught up and realized that, not only was James not protesting, James was kissing him back, quite happily.  
   
James paused to say, “Took you long enough,” and Michael murmured back, “Do you _ever_ stop talking, then?” and tried his best to kiss James utterly breathless.  
   
James ran hands across his back, untucking his shirt. Fingers left lines of warmth in their wake, across Michael’s skin. “Probably not, no…”  
   
What had he asked, again? Oh. Right. “I can live with that.”  
   
“Oh, excellent.”  
   
“ _You’re_ excellent. Except you owe me a naked picture, I think.” Michael nudged them both towards the bed, carefully.  James let himself be pushed back into the pillows, and grinned. “Wouldn’t you rather have the real thing?”  
   
“Are you offering? I missed you, too, you know. All day.” James probably _was_ offering—it certainly sounded like an offer—but he had to ask. Had to make sure it was real.  
   
“Not so much an offer. More a prediction of upcoming events.” James paused, and looked at him, suddenly serious. “Only if you want. I mean, I know I’m not—”  
   
“You’re not what? You’re perfect. I love you.” And that had just come out of his mouth, hadn’t it? He hadn’t meant to say that out loud, and certainly not so soon; what if James decided he was a crazy person, and ran away? But now the words were out there in the open, roaming happily between them.  
   
James blinked at him, astonishment making ripples in the ocean-blue depths of his eyes. “You might have to say that again, I think…”  
   
“That you’re perfect? You are.”  
   
“No! The other part.”  
   
“What other part?” Deny, deny. He tried to kiss James again, in the hope that this would prove sufficiently diversionary.  
   
“You love me!” James evidently could still talk even while being kissed. Quite an impressive talent, actually. But also, at this particular moment, terribly inconvenient.  
   
“I—”  
   
“You never said anything! And here I’d been thinking it was only me!”  
   
“You—what?”  
   
“You absolute idiot. Why do you think I came over here in the first place? And tried to make you think about me naked? And got into your bed?”  
   
“Technically you were _on_ my bed—” As if the preposition mattered. _Why_ was he thinking about grammar, again, at this moment?  
   
“And you’ve been not telling me this the whole time!”  
   
“You haven’t actually told me once yet!” Michael pointed out, truthfully, and James stopped to stare at him, and Michael put both arms around him, marveling at the feel of James lying there against him, warm and comfortable and, yes, perfect.  
   
“We’re both idiots. I should’ve told you ages ago. I do love you.” James settled against him, smiling; Michael could feel the curve of his lips against the bare skin where James had managed to unbutton his shirt. Beneath them, the bed, he decided, remembering James’s earlier comment, was definitely friendly.  
   
“I love you, too.”  
   
“Really?”  
   
“Of course really. Why? You don’t believe me?”  
   
“I do, I just…” James tipped his head up to look at Michael, who stared back, baffled and a little concerned. Where was that uncertainty coming from? James generally had enough decisiveness for at least ten people, when it came to something he wanted.  
   
“Do you want me to tell you again? Because I will.” He watched James’s expression, against the silent backdrop of fluffy white pillows.  
   
James sighed. “You know I’m not anything… special, right? I mean, you’re amazing. And gorgeous. And I’m not… I turned up at your door with no shoes on, you know.”  
   
“Are you _insane?_ ” Michael said, and kissed him, as deeply as he could, trying to show James just how fantastic he was, trying to say so with lips and tongue and teeth and hands, every way he could think of.  
   
“You’re the best person I know. You know the names of all the extras on set. And the make-up artists. And their children. And you laugh when interviewers make terrible jokes, just to get them to feel better. You make everyone smile. You make me smile. And I love you with no shoes on. Or with shoes on. Or anything you want.”  
   
He kissed James one more time, for good measure, and added, “And I can say it as many times as you want, if that’ll help. Would you like it in different languages? I can do that, too.” Come to think of it, he wouldn’t mind attempting that one. Would James like German, or Gaelic? Or perhaps French? His French wasn’t as good as the others, but French was supposed to be romantic, wasn’t it, and he could try.  
   
James was actually laughing again by the end of that, a little embarrassed, but looking happier. “You love me without shoes on? Seriously?”  
   
“I love you regardless of your footwear, James. Very seriously.”  
   
“So if I offered to not have _any_ clothes on…”  
   
“I love you with or without clothes. But I’d take you without clothes _extremely_ seriously.”  
   
“I love you, too.” This time it was James who leaned over to initiate the kiss, and Michael couldn’t help smiling, at that. “So… were you wanting no clothes, then?”  
   
“Not even the socks,” Michael told him, and James laughed.  
   
And the socks disappeared, along with everything else, and Michael did his best to prove that, yes, he took James without clothes extremely seriously indeed. He was, he thought, and James happily affirmed this in the morning, rather convincing.


End file.
